Apeiron Academy
by Kuroeia
Summary: Multi-fandom collection of mostly-unrelated crossover ficlets. High school AU with delusions of grandeur, not as cracky as it really ought to be. Now with illustrations linked on my profile!
1. I: pipe dream

**A/N: **All right, so. This fic. I don't know what the hell it even is. Basically, it's a no-holds barred crossover set in a panfandom university called Apeiron Academy. One step up from high school AU... but not really a step of any significance. It was spawned by an icon-pairing meme on my LiveJournal and the promptings of **moko-moko. **It will contain almost as many illicit relationships as any given CLAMP series, including rather a lot of boyslash, so consider yourself warned.

Well then. Have fun? 8D

**Fandoms: **D Gray-man, Death Note

**Prompt: **Lavi/L, 'level up'

**Note:**_ The apeiron is a cosmological theory created by Anaximander in the 6th century BC._

_Anaximander's work is mostly lost. From the few extant fragments, we learn that he believed the beginning or first principle (arche, a word first found in his writings, and which he probably invented) is an endless, unlimited mass (apeiron), subject to neither old age nor decay, which perpetually yields fresh materials from which everything which we can perceive is derived._

_The apeiron was never defined precisely, and it has generally (e.g. by Aristotle and Augustine) been understood as a sort of primal chaos. It embraced the opposites of hot and cold, wet and dry, and directed the movement of things, by which there grew up all of the host of shapes and differences which are found in the world._

_(...) _

_But as the measureless and endless had been the prime cause of the motion into separate existences and individual forms, so also, according to the just award of destiny, these forms would at an appointed season suffer the vengeance due to their earlier act of separation, and return into the vague immensity whence they had issued. Thus the world, and all definite existences contained in it, would lose their independence and disappear in the "indeterminate." _

Yay for completely overthinking things and giving things pretentious names. Anyway, that boundless and indeterminate world is this Academy, where all worlds coexist. XD

**Edit: **Now with fabulous illustrations by **Suriyel**, linked on my profile page. Seriously, they're awesome, go look.

**xxxxx**

_**I: pipe dream**_

**xxxxx**

There has always been a Bookman, as long as there has been history.

L had read about them in the library of the Whammy House as a child, but they had been listed under 'Legends' and he had never believed they had ever really existed. His mind was very sharp, one of the sharpest in the world, and logic told him that a memory like the Bookmen were written to possess was physically not possible. The legend had always fascinated him, however. What would it be like to remember every detail of a crime scene, to be able to recall the entirety of a past case with no effort, to memorize the minutae of someone's facial expression so as to be able to tell instantly if they were lying? He would be the best detective in the world. They would pay him in truckloads of cake.

He wasn't, however, stupid enough to fantasize about something so impossible to attain while conscious and awake... but his subconscious was another matter. Not every night, but many nights since he was a child have been filled with visions of such absolute observation and the insights it would bring. Over time he'd learned to ignore them as the silly pipe dreams they were.

That all changed the day he met his new downstairs neighbour in the dormitory hallway, though he didn't know it at the time.

At first all L could see was red hair. The colour was ridiculous, completely unrealistic, and yet he couldn't detect the slightest hint of darkening at the roots to indicate that it was fake. After he managed to tear himself away from that, he found one startlingly green eye and one eyepatch, and a very broad grin. The man introduced himself as 'Lavi,' which was also ridiculous but wasn't said with any hint of deception.

Bemused, L introduced himself, noticing as he did so that his own name was hardly less ridiculous.

Then 'Lavi' invited him in for pizza and video games, and L abandoned the day as a bad-- or at least, very strange-- job.

The strangeness abated quickly. The pizza was delicious, the cinnamon sticks with sugar frosting even more so, and the video game was simple but challenging. L was naturally good at them, of course, being naturally good at anything that involved using one's brain, but Lavi was phenomenal. He seemed to see patterns long before they could logically be confirmed, and any time L invented a new move Lavi copied it without difficulty moments later. He remembered the layouts of mazes in perfect detail while blithely whizzing through them.

Eventually L asked him if he had an eidetic memory, very impressed in any case.

Lavi went strangely quiet. "Something like that," he answered softly, then suddenly grinned with almost manic enthusiasm. "Oh, look, I leveled up! Ahaha, you're going idown./i"

The attempt to change the topic didn't fool L, but he could see that for some reason it wasn't a topic his new acquaintance felt comfortable discussing, at least not yet. Instead of pressing now and possibly losing his chance to learn the truth later, L held his tongue and decided to be patient. Interrogation wasn't his favourite part of the job, but he was still good at it, and knew when to push and when to wait.

"So, what do you do for a living?" he asked eventually, deeming it an acceptably vague question.

"I'm a historian," answered Lavi. "I'm working on my master's degree in world history. My thesis is about the effect of the internet on the recording of historical events."

"Fascinating," said L honestly. "World history? So you have a moderate knowledge of all cultures rather than an in-depth knowledge of just one or two?"

Lavi grimaced. "Not exactly. I'm kind of a schoolaholic-- I have an in-depth knowledge of pretty much everything, actually."

L raised an eyebrow, careful not to lose concentration on the game. If he blinked at the wrong time Lavi had a habit of either killing his character outright or getting so far ahead in the level L could only hope for a miracle to catch up. He wasn't accustomed to being embarrassed this way, but it was intellectually interesting so he didn't particularly mind. "Everything? That's impressive."

"From the Aztecs to the Ainu," replied Lavi ruefully without taking his eyes off the television. "It's... kind of the family business."

Despite the caution his intuition begged him to use, L couldn't resist the temptation of that. "Remarkable. I'm reminded of the legendary Bookmen. Your memory, your historical inclinations... perhaps you're a sort of modern incarnation of their myth?"

Lavi stiffened, then sighed and let the controller fall onto his lap with a wry grin. "You've been dying to ask that, haven't you?"

That was not the reaction L had been expecting. He wasn't certain exactly what that expectation was, but it had gone something along the lines of iBookmen? what are those?/i "So you know of the Bookmen? I admit I've been fascinated with them for some time. Forgive me."

Then Lavi answered his implicit question explicitly, and L began to wonder if he were perhaps dreaming again.

"This is the best university in the country... probably the world," Lavi explained, scratching his head sheepishly. "All the Bookmen have studied here. I'm kind of a slacker compared to most of my predecessors, but I have the memory so I don't really have to try all that hard to learn everything."

"Remarkable," L said again, robbed of most of his vocabulary by the manifestation of his favourite daydream material in what appeared to be the real world; sweatpants, bed hair, unfairly attractive devilish smile and all. Somehow, in all those dreams he had never considered the idea of someone _else_ being the Bookman. Only himself. And yet, here was this boy with insane hair who had stolen his dream from him and made it real, and somehow there was no resentment in him because of it.

Lavi shrugged self-consciously. "To tell the truth, I'd rather not be a Bookman. You're supposed to give up all bias and never take sides according to their rules, but I'm... I've always been easily swayed. I can't stay impartial even if my life depends on it. I do my best to keep neutral records, but honestly... I'm not suited for it at all. I don't know why I was born with the ability when I don't have the temperament. I don't even like writing essays."

It was patently unfair, thought L, that such a gift should be given to someone who did not want it. He wished he could resent Lavi for it, but he was too logical for that. He knew it wasn't Lavi's fault. Genetics decided on this, not his new friend, and they couldn't be effectively blamed because they didn't care.

"I envy you," said L honestly, surprising himself. He wasn't usually one to admit to such emotions.

Lavi grinned. "Let me guess: you want to be a detective, right?"

Astonished, L gave a guarded nod. "How did you know that?"

"I read," replied Lavi mischievously. "Mysteries. Noir. I can tell when I'm being interrogated. You've been searching for clues to support your hypothesis this whole time. Don't think I missed that. Also, I've seen you around school, and all your classes are either law, forensics, or anthropology."

L stared. "If I didn't know about your memory, I would wonder if you were stalking me."

An alarmingly wide smile spread across Lavi's face. "How do you know I'm not? Maybe I've been admiring you from afar all term and you just haven't noticed."

"Have you?" counters L, determined not to be thrown off balance by the strange turn of the conversation. If his new friend wanted to see how far he could be pushed, he would push back. It wasn't a one-way conversation. There were two sharp minds present, not just one.

Lavi laughed. "Maybe. You're an interesting person, well worth stalking."

It was mildly disturbing to L that he was flattered by that, but he was. The Academy was full of interesting people, but this was an actual Bookman, straight out of his fantasies. Admittedly not quite in the way he'd wished, but still a real Bookman, with all the talents and abilities the legends had attributed him and all his predecessors. He wondered for a moment if Lavi could be convinced to partner with him in the detective agency he planned to start after getting his degrees, then wrote it off as a ridiculous fantasy. L didn't need a partner. In fact, he preferred to work alone whenever possible. It reduced distraction and made for clearer thinking. People just complicated things.

The problem was that he wasn't entirely against this particular potential complication.

"So, are you going to start your own agency?" asked Lavi casually.

L began to hear destiny calling and felt helpless for the first time in a very long time. "Yes, I'd like to do that."

Lavi picked up the controller again and set about systematically destroying L. "Could you use a partner? I don't really fancy traveling the world recording wars and genocide and death, selfish as that sounds."

"I don't blame you," said L, distantly aware of the fact that he had no control over what he was saying whatsoever. "And... certainly, I'm sure I could find a place in the agency for you."

"Awesome," said Lavi, and killed L's avatar again for the fifth time in a row. "I'll hold you to that."

**XxxxxxX**

**A/N:** Buddy!detectives ftw! XD


	2. II: three of a kind

**A/N: **Part two. Homoerotic tension abounds, albeit in a very mild and non-explicit way.

**Fandoms: **Naruto, Fruits Basket

**Prompt: **Sasuke/Naruto/Kyou, 'poker'

**xxxxx**

_**II: three of a kind**_

**xxxxx**

The blackboard eraser hit the wall beside him with a dusty thunk. "You're late," growled Kyou, baring his unnaturally sharp canines.

Sasuke favoured him with a cool look. "I am never late. The meeting starts when I get here. That's always been the rule."

"Yeah, well, the rule sucks," said Kyou coolly, flipping the pack of cards through his hands with a sharp snap. "If you tell us to be here by six, you should freakin' well be here by six too."

"Yeah!" agreed Naruto enthusiastically, punching the air.

Sasuke glared at him. "Shut up, Naruto."

"Screw you, Sasuke," replied Naruto amiably, then shut up.

At a deliberately leisurely pace, Sasuke moved across the room and took his place at the table. As a mark of self-confidence-- arrogance, as Naruto often pointed out and just as often got punched in the face for-- he wore only his usual number of clothes. One shirt. One pair of shorts. Two wristbands, two shoes, one sock on each foot, and one pair of underwear. One headband identifying him as a member of the martial arts club. Nothing else.

Kyou, as usual, was bundled up like an Eskimo in February. Naruto fell somewhere in between, torn between the prospect of future humiliation and _present_ humiliation.

Kyou snapped the deck between his fingers once again. "Well then. Now that everyone's here, shall we _finally_ get this show on the road?"

"Yeah!" said Naruto, grinning and bouncing in his seat.

With swift, practiced movements, Kyou dealt the cards in the space of a few seconds. After picking his own up, he made his usual grimace and began rearranging them, as though putting them in a different order made them less of a crap hand.

A glimpse at his own hand told Sasuke that he would probably win this round, as usual. His luck was somehow unquestionably higher than the others. He didn't even believe in it, but he always won at this game and didn't really have a better explanation as to why.

Besides, he was much more interested in an explanation as to why they had started this bizarre tradition in the first place. They were all male, ostensibly straight, and definitely had plenty of better things to do on a Friday night than play strip poker with a couple of friendly rivals. Nevertheless, every Friday evening at six found the three of them here in the literature club room, in various states of dress and often half-intoxicated. They had amassed a respectable store of liquor in the inexplicable mini-fridge-- why would the literature club need a mini-fridge?-- and the night always ended in something nobody could quite remember the morning after.

They were an odd mix, to be sure.

Sasuke was a law student, but by choice, not talent alone. He was, quite simply, one of those people who are good at everything. He had chosen law for a very personal reason-- his older brother, who had graduated with honours several years ago, had as his first case prosecuted their own parents for fraud and conspiracy against the government. They had died in jail, and Sasuke had never forgiven him for it. He was in law in the hopes of taking his brother on in a high-profile case and beating his traitorous ass into the _ground._

Naruto was there on a football scholarship, but had shown an uncanny talent for all sports, martial arts especially. The karate club had gotten to him first, but he had equal aptitude for anything that involved moving his body. His intellect was hardly first class, but he had an innate cleverness which Sasuke had learned the hard way never to underestimate. An incident in middle school involving a closet, some rope, and a girl Naruto liked who liked Sasuke had taught him this lesson very quickly. They had been friends since then for many years despite their mutual antagonization.

Kyou was a newer addition to the friendship, having only met Naruto and Sasuke after coming to the Academy. He was generally unimpressed with both of them, but seemed to feel an inexplicable need to follow them all over campus. He was a zoology major and tended to like animals better than people, but apparently even someone as lonerish as him needed social contact sometimes. He'd chosen them for it, possibly because they were the polar opposite of 'clingy' and usually kicked him out long before he got tired of hanging out with them. Personally, Sasuke believed that he was starved for affection but had learned from childhood that asking for it would only result in disgust and ostracization. Psychology was not his favourite course, but as he was good at everything, he couldn't help picking some of it up, and Kyou was practically a textbook case.

Despite being such an unlikely group, none of them had ever missed a Friday night poker meeting in two years.

"Full house," declared Sasuke, badly veiling the tone of triumph in his voice.

Kyou swore and threw his cards at the table, nearly catching one in the eye as it bounced on its corner and flew back up into the air.

Naruto made a disappointed face so exaggerated it resembled a caricature. "How come you always win, Sasuke? Do you cheat?"

"I don't cheat, Naruto. You're just terrible at this game. You're terrible at everything. Why are you so surprised?"

"I am not!" bellowed Naruto, throwing his cards down in favour of standing and leaning over the table to get into Sasuke's face.

Sasuke sneered. "Of course you are, dead last. You are a disgrace to this university, I've said it over and over again. I don't know why you stay."

"Don't be a dick, Sasuke," muttered Kyou under his breath, but as usual, neither of them listened to him.

Naruto's face instantly turned gratifyingly purple. "I stay for _you_, you bastard, you know that!"

Turning quite red himself, Kyou conjured a racking cough from nowhere and gathered the cards up, performing a habitual snap just to break the tense silence. "We lost, Naruto. Pay up," he said, removing his scarf with obvious relief. The room was already quite warm. Sweat beaded his forehead.

Naruto hesitated a moment, then sat down and removed his top shirt. "Whatever. You're a jerk, I don't know why I bother."

"We both know why you bother," corrected Sasuke smugly.

His friend had no answer for that, choosing instead to frown dramatically over the new set of cards he was dealt. It wasn't that he couldn't say it, or even that he wouldn't. It was because Kyou was there.

He had somehow become the mediator in their bizarre love/hate relationship, and was probably the only reason they hadn't killed each other yet. It was amusing because Kyou was hardly the mediator type-- he was just as hot-headed as Naruto, and just as arrogant as Sasuke, but he'd realized at some point way back when that if he didn't keep the peace between them he'd be forced to find companionship somewhere else... which was by the far the more unpleasant outcome. Most of the time he ended up yelling at both of them, and both of them ended up yelling at him, until somehow they all found themselves in a comically frantic wrestling match on the floor. Kyou was a biter, and with those sharp teeth he was no force to be taken lightly. Both Sasuke and Naruto had scars all over their arms from pissing him off. They were more careful and diplomatic nowadays.

Sasuke won the next round, and Kyou the round after that. Then Sasuke again, then Naruto for once causing Sasuke to lose his headband, then Sasuke almost constantly with brief interludes of Kyou until Naruto was completely naked. This was not an unusual outcome, nor an unwelcome one. As a sports major who spent most of his time working out, Naruto became progressively more pleasant to look at the less he was wearing.

Even Kyou was not immune-- though he pretended to unshakeable straightness, Sasuke had caught him many times surreptitiously ogling Naruto out the corners of his eyes. Sasuke was not threatened. Naruto had been his right from the beginning-- probably from the first day, though he'd never admit it even on pain of extra homework. Kyou could ogle all he liked. Sasuke liked him, and Naruto was mostly oblivious anyway.

After three more rounds, the remainder of the chips landed in front of Sasuke. He smirked triumphantly as Kyou, blushing ferociously and muttering under his breath, removed the rest of his half-dozen layers of clothing. Sasuke had only lost his headband and one sock.

There were, he reflected, worse ways to spend a Friday night.

**XxxxxxX**

**A/N:** This fic is so weird, I don't even know. O.O


	3. III: kingyo

**A/N: **It seems I can't even write this pairing without breaking my own heart. Damn you, CLAMP.

**Fandoms: **Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles

**Prompt:** Fye/Sakura, 'goldfish'

**xxxxx**

_**III: kingyo**_

**xxxxx**

In her room, she has a goldfish.

She's named it Syaoran, after her first love. It took him weeks and months of patient companionship to learn even that much. Sakura keeps her secrets close to her heart. She loves easily and trusts slowly, though to those not paying attention it seems the opposite. He knows she would die for almost anyone, but will tell her truth to almost no one. He feels privileged to know even that much.

Her name is Sakura. He asked her on the very first day, with a sweeping bow and a rogueish wink, but had to wait a month after that to recover from the bittersweetness of her smile when she answered him before speaking to her again.

Fye is a teacher. He knows it is terribly improper of him to favour her as he does, but he simply can't help it.

She is in his art and art history classes. Though she always stares out the windows at the changing clouds and seems not to be listening, she always knows the answer when he asks her a question. Moreover, unlike her bored and uninspired classmates, the art she creates is heartbreaking in its purity and sorrow. Fye has caught himself many times staring at her paintings and sketches for long minutes on end when he ought to be marking piles of works. They depict empty landscapes, sometimes but rarely occupied by one very small, partially-transparent girl. He knows she is capable of much more creative diversity than this, and half-heartedly encourages her to expand her repertoire, but this is what is in her heart and really all he wishes for is to see more.

One week when she went away to visit her family, it was him she asked to care for Syaoran. Fye felt obscurely honoured by that, and wishes now every day that she would trust him with more than her pet goldfish.

Sometimes, very rarely, he sees glimpses of the girl she used to be before the nameless tragedy she trusts no one with. She smiles and the entire class smiles with her without realizing what they are doing. She helps a pimply, awkward boy pick up the books he has dropped and everyone in the hallway feels ashamed for not having gotten there first. She praises the least talented member of the class, and suddenly he sees a genius in their work that he had ignorantly dismissed before. Sakura sees things, knows things, and says them out loud whenever she has the opportunity.

Even so, he knows she has changed. The edges of her now are too awkward to be familiar. She is uncomfortable within herself, but unwilling to burden anyone else with her fear and pain.

Fye tries very hard not to think of her as some kind of saint, but mostly fails.

This is partially but not entirely due to the first day of classes. He arrived to find her already there, fingers trailing down the frame of one of his sample works. She turned to him with those eyes, those eyes nothing in him had ever really managed to hide from, and asked him why he was so lonely.

Taken aback, he had asked her why she thought he was lonely, and she told him that the painting had told her so.

In all his time as a teacher, he has never met a student or a teacher or any person at all who had seen through the colourful chaos of his paintings to the truth beneath, and so he does not know what to do with her. He fears her. He is drawn to her. He is both, and everything in between, and he has absolutely no idea what to do.

So he teaches his classes, teaches her, and learns from her at the same time. She had lived for barely half the time he has, but she has a wisdom he has never even approached.

When he is afraid and cautious, she afraid and tries anyway.

When he is suspicious and withdrawn, she is suspicious and chooses to trust anyway.

When he is hurt, he smiles, false and bitter. When she is hurt, she smiles and weeps, genuine and loving.

He has never met anyone in his life he wishes so hard he could love. He can't, he knows. She is his student, she is too young, she is innocent while he is old and jaded. He would hurt her. He would _ruin_ her. And yet, and yet, he still wishes he could give in.

She does not help. After class she comes up to hand in her assignments in person, smiling and explaining the meaning behind her work to him. When he has had a bad day, she always knows and lays a hand on his arm to remind him to listen to her words of comfort. When she sees him in the hallways, she bows and beams at him as though she is thrilled beyond words to see him. It makes it even worse that he knows she means it.

One day he knows he will break and ask her out to dinner. He will see the shadow of Syaoran in her eyes the moment before she thinks of a diplomatic way to refuse, and his heart will shatter beyond repair. Later, days or weeks or months later, he will lose his strength and ask again, and once again she will dash the hopes he should not have in the first place.

It is a conflict he hasn't the heart to resolve. He shouldn't love her, he can't, but he does. He loves her. He has loved her for two years, and he will love her for years and years to come.

Perhaps one day Syaoran will fade enough in her mind for there to be room for him. Until then he will have to subsist on the love she gives everyone, the all-encompassing altruism that is her base and incontrovertible truth. It isn't enough. It will never be enough. However, it is all he has, at least for now. Therefore, it _has_ to be enough.

He lives his life now in the hopes that when he eventually falls apart around her, she will put him back together instead of stepping on the pieces. Futile, perhaps, but it keeps him going when there is nothing else.

Once he lived for the twin he stole his name from. Now he lives for her, and he has no friends left to call him derisive names for it.

Surrender is his fondest fantasy.

**XxxxxxX**

**A/N: **bawwww


	4. IV: bliss

**A/N: **Aand here's part four. Warning: baaad love ahead. Not explicit.

**Fandoms: **Inuyasha, D Gray-man

**Prompt: **Naraku/Allen, shampoo

**xxxxx**

_**IV: bliss**_

**xxxxx**

He exhales, and the candles flicker.

He knows that usually such things are reserved for romantic encounters, but that it not his intention. They calm him. Their wavering glow against the steamy dark helps his mind drift away from the daily stress of his life. All his fears sink into the water and are carried away from him.

Naraku is not weak. This is a ritual for him, and a powerful one. It takes away the doubts which cripple him and makes him certain.

A knock at the door-- the boy has arrived at last, several minutes late as usual. Naraku knows the boy leads a frenetic life at the academy he attends, but it wouldn't do to let him off without a scolding. Punctuality is important in the battlefield of business. Being late to engagements ensures that the enemy will get to high ground first. Chances of defeat rise with every moment wasted.

Bowing and smiling sheepishly, the boy comes in, arms full of bottles and towels. His smiles and apologies are too bright for Naraku to bear, so he turns away dismissively to save himself.

People at his level of power are entitled to such things as this, but it still feels like a risk, like he is softening with complacency before true invincibility is attained. What if someone were to pay the boy off to slip something into one of those bottles which would silence his mouth, darken his eyes, end his ambition forever? It wasn't impossible. He had stepped on many toes on his path to power. His influence now was great and widespread, a massive spiderweb the size of a city, but what if it isn't enough?

Still smiling brightly and chattering away as he was wont to do, the boy rolls up his sleeves and buries his shampoo-laden hands in Naraku's hair.

The bliss is immediate and breathtaking. The deft thumbs working at the base of his skull, the gently unpredictable tugging at his scalp, make his eyes slide helplessly out of focus. He has power over thousands upon thousands of people, but under this child's hands he is mere malleable putty.

He knows it would be a scandal if anyone ever found out. It would rock the foundations of his fledgling empire. It would reveal him to the world as the ugly thing he is, but even so he cannot resist.

The boy's name is Allen. He pretends not to remember it most of the time, but it is a lie, one of many when it comes to this. The boy's name is Allen and he falls asleep many nights with those two syllables resting on the tip of his tongue, unspoken desire.

Allen runs his fingers through the endless luxurious rivers of Naraku's hair, careful not miss even on stray lock. His hands rest warm and tender on Naraku's scalp, unflinching, unafraid, so very reminiscent of the one he refuses to let himself remember. Not even her name. He can't afford the weakness that comes with thoughts of her. That's why he chose to hire a boy for this-- a woman would have made the mandatory distance that much more difficult.

It hasn't helped all that much in the past, and it isn't helping now, because Allen is the kindest person he has ever met.

Naraku is cruel, he is corrupt, he knows his conscience is broken and does not regret it. Moreoever, he knows that Allen knows this. And yet, sometimes before he leaves Allen presses gentle kisses to his forehead and curls arms around his shoulders-- as though he _cares_-- and leans his face against the back of Naraku's neck and breathes like he's trying to memorize the moment.

He shouldn't. He is far too good a person to care about Naraku, but he does.

Sometimes, in his very weakest moments, Naraku dreams of reaching up with his own thin arms and dragging Allen into the water with him, possessing him, tainting the brilliant innocence which is his trademark. He wonders whether the inside of Allen's mouth would taste sweet or bitter, or both. The visions drive him half-mad, but he resists. The goal of power remains just clear enough in his mind to hold him up against temptation, but he can't help but wonder what Allen is thinking when he touches him. Does he enjoy it, or does he only pretend because he is handsomely paid for it?

Somehow, he can't think so. Allen's fingers linger too many moments too long for obligation. His eyes are too sad when he packs and leaves at the end of their evenings together. He is kind, but not innocent, not innocent enough for there to be no meaning behind his lips and fingers in the dark.

This evening is the seventh time. Seven is a magic number. Naraku doesn't believe in magic, but he does believe in scapegoats.

Allen's lips are on his brow, warm and impossibly compassionate. Without allowing himself enough time to think his way out of the mistake, Naraku tilts his head back and reaches up to catch his fingers in Allen's pale hair and draw him further down, closer in. The meeting feels somehow inevitable, but endlessly sweet nonetheless. Allen's mouth is warm. Neither sweet nor bitter, but as he had thought something nameless and aching in the middle.

Naraku is a terrible person. He knows this. He became this intentionally out of weakness and fear, and he sees no way back to what he once was. He does not deserve love, not from anyone, but this does not stop him from wanting it like the ache of starvation in his chest.

He kisses Allen from the memory of the soul he once had, and Allen does not pull away. It is more than he deserves and everything he has ever wished for. He will destroy this child, he knows, but he does not care. His heart is black and cold as ashes on the moon, but this... this burns like fire, and he is helpless to resist.

The truth is that even if he destroys Allen, the loss will destroy him right back.

**XxxxxxxX**

**A/N:** why is this pairing so hot, ohgod, brb going to hell


	5. V: echo

**A/N: **Part five.

**Fandoms: **Bleach, Ouran HSHC

**Prompt:** Orihime x Host Club, 'peanut butter and leeks'

**xxxxx**

_**V: echo**_

**xxxxx**

The apartment is empty without them.

In the years after her brother, she's learned self-sufficiency, but she's never learned not to feel lonely. It has always seemed an impossible goal for her, like being famous or becoming a millionaire or starring in a reality TV show.

Orihime has survived, but she has not lived.

They come only on a whim, she knows, but that doesn't matter to her. What matters is only that they come, and for a while chase the echoing ache of loneliness out of her apartment. When they're there, she can remember how to smile.

It makes her laugh that they are always astonished when she has dinner ready for them when they arrive. Of course, they don't know that there is a traitor in the their ranks-- Kyouya always calls to warn her beforehand, being rather more sensible than most of the rest of them.

Sometimes as she does her homework, she catches herself reading the same passages over and over again as she listens for the phone to ring.

Today is not a day like that, because Kyouya has already called her.

She stands in front of the stove, frilly pink apron in full bloom around her torso, hair tied back and out of the way so that the oil won't get into it. Today's dishes are leek soup with water chestnuts and thin noodles with white wine, watercress and strawberry salad, halibut with maple syrup sauce, and peanut butter and jelly cake for dessert. Often she is teased for her penchant to pair odd things together, but the Host Club's tastes are very refined and they still come back week after week to partake of her unusual cuisine, so she knows she must be doing something right.

As the soup simmers and the fish bakes, she lays out the table. Herself at the head, closest to the kitchen. Tamaki at her right, Kyouya to her left. The twins next to Tamaki, Mori and Honey next to Kyouya, and at the far end, Haruhi. They arranged themselves like this automatically the very first time, and it requires almost no thought for Orihime to tailor the table to them accordingly. An extra pair of napkins of Honey, the messiest eater. Fork and knife switched for Kyouya, who has taught himself to be right-handed due to the world being essentially built around those who are, but is secretly more comfortable eating with his left. Wine bottle near Mori, as it's somehow always his duty to pour for everyone. The twins' placements slightly closer to each other than the others, as they don't seem entirely at ease unless their shoulders are touching.

Glancing up at the clock, she smiles to realize that cooking has passed almost an hour already. They will be here in hardly any time at all. Humming to herself, she puts Yiruma on the speakers, takes off her apron, and lets down her hair.

They haven't even arrived yet, and already the echo is fading.

**XxxxxxX**

**A/N: **She has yet to meet her current friends in this universe, in case you were wondering where Tatsuki and Chizuru and the others are.


	6. VI: facade

**A/N: **Part six. I apologize in advance for this—this is the first thing that popped into my head when I got the prompt for multiple Sasukes in one fic.

**Fandoms: **Naruto

**Prompt: **Sasuke/Sasuke/Sasuke, 'plushie'

**xxxxx**

_**VI: façade**_

**xxxxx**

Sasuke was having a terrible day.

His socioeconomics professor paired him up with Naruto for their term project, for starters, which would have been bad enough on its own. Also, his lunch had mysteriously rotted in his bag over the course of one morning, with no one to blame in sight, his favourite hairdresser had pneumonia and her replacement gave him a fauxhawk, he forgot about Daylight Savings time and got to school an hour earlier than necessary, and it was raining.

Any one of those could have made a bad day for Sasuke. He was easy that way. All of them together made a fairly awful day, which was also not rare.

However, all of those paled in comparison to the fact that They were back, despite hundreds of hours of hypnotherapy in the effort to rid himself of their highly unwelcome presences.

"Nooo," said the smaller one, clutching something protectively to his chest that looked suspiciously like a dinosaur plushie. "This was a present from brother, you can't take it!"

The larger one scowled and tried to snatch it away again. "_Brother_ is a traitorous fuck," he snapped. "He put Mom and Dad in jail, practically _killed_ them! There's no point in keeping anything he gave you. It makes you look weak. Throw that junk away and stop crying, you loser, there's work to be done."

Sasuke shut his eyes and plugs his ears and breathes deeply, praying devoutly to whatever god would listen that they'd be gone when he let go.

"—does too!"

"He does not! If he loved you, would he have done that? You're an idiot, and a crybaby, and I hate you."

"I hate you too!"

"I wish you'd just die already."

"No, you!"

Logically, Sasuke was led to the conclusion that there was no god. Not that he had ever really thought there was one, at least not one that wasn't a total douchebag. If they were up there, they were all clearly vindictive bastards with nothing better to do than make him miserable.

Giving up, he reached out and yanked the plushie out of his child-self's hands, glared at his teenage-self, and folded his hands on his lap. "You're both morons, you're both losers, and you can both die. I have no need of either of you any more. Get the fuck out of my head before I'm forced to do something drastic."

"Like what?" sneered his teenaged self. "Read us our rights? You haven't done tae kwon do in years. I could take you. You would lose to me in ten seconds flat."

"You're a _hallucination,_" Sasuke reminded him. "How exactly could you 'take me?'"

The teenager gave a surly shrug. "I don't know. You're the one talking to yourself, you tell me."

"You didn't grow up as cool as brother," his child-self observed, slicing his ego up into tiny chunks of shattered self-esteem without any outward sign of intentional cruelty.

Throwing the plushie across the room—where it naturally vanished before hitting anything, since it wasn't actually there—Sasuke stood up and paced. "Get out," he begged, "please. I have homework to do. I have three essays due in two days, I have a project I have to work with that retard Naruto on, I have connections to forge and favours to build up with people in power. My hair is awful. My kitchen still stinks like peach mold. I have enough stress in my life, I don't have time to deal with you too."

His teenaged self smirked. "Hey, we're figments of your imagination. We don't make ourselves up. Moron."

"So uncool," muttered the child, clutching the plushie again and staring at the floor.

"I am not--!" Sasuke began, but was interrupted by a restless hammering on his door. Ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty… the pounding showed no sign of giving up. Sasuke snarled soundlessly. "Naruto, I'm coming, stop being an idiot!"

He turned back to his living room to find nothing but empty space.

"Fuck," he said quietly to himself, then gathered up his books and headed for the door. It was sad day for him indeed when Naruto's arrival led to more sanity rather than less, but he would take what he could get.

It seemed he was not yet free of his brother's shadow. He wondered if he ever would be, since it seemed he couldn't even defeat his eight year old self yet, let alone Itachi.

Thankfully, he didn't have to answer that question just yet. Naruto was here, in all his distractingly blond, grinning glory. Today he could pretend to be whole and calm and confident. Today he had an excuse to keep pretending.

He could be broken and lonely and frightened later, when there was no one to see.

**XxxxxxxX**

**A/N:** Oh Sasuke, I'm so sorry, I'm such a bitch to you. XD


	7. VII: hymn

**A/N: **Part seven, birth of a new OTP. The tense change in the last section is intentional so as to contrast with the flashback past tense of the previous section.

**Fandoms:** Tales of Symphonia, Tales of the Abyss

**Prompt: **Zelos/Tear

**xxxxx**

_**VII: hymn**_

**xxxxx**

Just for the record, Tear hated him.

Or perhaps hate was too strong a word. She'd learned her lesson about hate in the past-- it screwed things up, complicated her life, hurt people who didn't deserve hurting. So she didn't hate him. But she didn't like him. She disliked him a _lot._

It wasn't the hair, though that didn't help. Reminders of her relationship with Luke and its subsequent sad failure made her depressed, but she was logical enough a person to know that that wasn't Zelos's fault.

It wasn't the never-ending flirting, either. She was as used to that by now as she was having long hair and it didn't even make her blush these days, though she often seized the excuse to hit him because the violence made her feel marginally better.

It wasn't the similarities in their backgrounds-- wealthy, suppressed by their families, rebellious-- though that didn't help either.

It was the way he smiled at her, like he could see right through her cold, controlled facade to the tumultous workings of her insides. Though she never cried, he always gave her the impression of being just about to wipe the tears off her cheeks. It drove her insane. She didn't _want_ anyone to see her, that's why she had her facade in the first place.

Even so, even though it hurt to be around him most of the time and made her angry the rest, she couldn't help herself.

When they'd met last year, early in the autumn semester, she had been sitting in a secluded area of the campus practicing for the upcoming exams. Her vibrato was still shaky and unsure of itself, and her neglected lower register needed a little smoothing before she went up before Professor Demyx. He was a deceptively scatterbrained, laid-back, genial guy, until it came to marking. Then he was a vicious blue-eyed demon.

Practicing in advance was hardly even optional in his vocals class, and Tear was good at following rules.

Fretting over how thin her low notes still sounded, she hadn't even heard him coming up to her, though he hadn't even tried to be quiet.

"Yo, my sultry songstress," he said cordially.

It took her a moment to realize what he had actually said, because at first all she'd seen was long red hair and pale skin and thought _Luke, oh god,_ and then another moment after she realized he wasn't Luke for the blush and frown to catch up. "Is my practicing disturbing you?" she'd asked. "I'll move somewhere else."

Raising his hands in mock affront, he'd shaken his head vigorously. "No, babe, not at all. I'm completely bewitched. Please, continue, or I might have to cry."

At first she'd opened her mouth to say him staring at her made her uncomfortable, but then she'd realized that she was studying for a possible career in the performance arts alongside her audiotherapy major and if an audience of one made her nervous, what would she do with an audience of hundreds? Thousands?

So, she'd resolutely turned away and continued her practice as though he was not there, commanding her voice not to waver.

When at last she was finished, he had clapped enthusiastically and leaned right into her face, making her blush again by sheer reflex. "Say, I have a... proposition for you," he had said with a lascivious wink.

She had slapped him. Then she'd said yes.

And now, somehow, her studies had taken a backseat to his proposition, which had turned out to be a band.

He played guitar and sang. She played piano and sang. Sometimes they were joined by Professor Demyx with his sitar, a mysterious man named Hagi on the cello, and often by an alarmingly enthusiastic boy named Ryouhei on the drums.

The core of the band, however, remaind the two of them. Though some of their songs sounded better with the accompaniment of the others, any one of them could still be performed only with them and still sound beautiful.

Tear had been skeptical of his talent at first. His long hair, oddly colourful clothes, and smarmy tone had all spoken to her of a layabout hippie who practiced sporadically at best and got bored quickly. As it turned out, she was right about all but the last. He was a layabout hippie who almost never practiced, but he was a genius so it didn't actually matter.

At first she was horrendously jealous. She rehearsed and ground her way through scales and arpeggios for hours every day just to reach the level he was already effortlessly at.

However, after a while, she had given that envy up for the pointless exercise it was. Hating him for being naturally more talented than her didn't make him less talented, or her more. It just gave her a bitter taste in her mouth and soured the music they made together. So, with a sigh and a song, she let it go and loved him for it instead.

This, by the way, was not mutually exclusive to her dislike for him. She still disliked him, and probably always would. But she could not ever deny that the songs he wrote were beautiful and his voice was beautiful and everything he did _ever_ was beautiful. It was as if he were born to be beautiful, even in his poisonous hatred of his place in the world.

When he turned twenty-one next year, his family would demand that he take his place at the feet of his father and learn to run their gigantic corporation. He would be made to don a black suit, cut all his fiery hair off so as to appear professional, and set his mind to making money for the future of his family.

It would kill him. His heart would continue to beat, his breath would keep coming in steady ebbs and flows, his skin would still be pale and bright. His hair would still be red, but everything that made him Zelos would be gone.

So it was that their time together was bittersweet.

xxxxx

"Hey, I'm thinking of starting a band, and I could really use a voice as divine as yours," he said with a wink, his face mere inches from hers, his smile blinding at this proximity. "I play the guitar and sing, but there are already a ton of guy-and-guitar acts out there. I want something new and play piano, right?"

Flustered, she nodded. "Yes, and the flute."

"Awesome," he pronounced, and reached out to seize her hand and shake it firmly. "Welcome to the band."

"I haven't said yes yet," she reminded him pertly, withdrawing her hand as soon as he loosened his grip enough. "I have a heavy courseload. I barely have a moment to myself as it is, why should I give it to you?"

"Because you love me?" he said with a brilliant smile.

"No, I don't," she protested.

It was that moment that was her downfall. She would remember it clearly in years to come, with a sad smile and a hand clasped to her heart.

"Yes, you do," he replied, but it wasn't a statement. He was still smiling, but now it was a gaping wound on his face, raw and bleak and a perfect painting of his heart. It was like he had turned transparent for just this moment to let her see the hell inside him, a gesture of profound humility and desperation.

"All right," she found herself saying before she could think about it too much. Anything to ease that pain. She was a healer, after all, in training to use music to calm the mind and dissolve pain. What sort of healer would she be if she refused him this one thing?

That evening they met each other in a dimly lit practice room, she with a keyboard and he with an acoustic guitar, and made music together until they fell asleep on their instruments with smiles on their faces.

The next day, they met again at the same room at the same time without asking. It was worth forgoing sleep for the warm, otherwordly stories they were writing together.

He flirted mercilessly whenever they weren't actively playing, driving her half-mad within the first week until she realized from watching him with other girls in their program that he did that with everyone. Flirting was his native language. He probably didn't even realize he was doing it half the time.

Strangely, realizing that both relieved and disappointed her. She hated the flirting, and disliked him, but somehow it had made her feel special to be called such overstated but beautiful names.

As the days passed, however, she had come to realize that though he flirted with everyone, it was her he kept coming back to. Zelos never made music with anyone else, not like this.

Eventually, reaching the magical moment in their music where everything seemed to click into a distinctive style, they turned to performing. It was then that her schooling fell by the wayside, suddenly much less compelling than the rapt looks on the faces of their endless audiences, the echoing moment of silence just before the standing ovation, the surreal boundary between the stage light and the auditorium dark.

All of a sudden, there was demand for them all across the country, offers of airfare and hotel accommodation and payment just to have them come and make their music for those not quite rich enough to fly all the way to the Academy's island to hear them.

Then came the recording contracts, mere months before his twenty-first birthday. It was an irresistable though time-consuming offer-- to immortalize the beauty they'd created together on disc and digital file, indestructible, eternal.

Forgoing school altogether, they spent days secluded in the hushed sanctity of the recording booth, blessed with the luxury of all the time they needed. Hours upon hours they spent singing the same songs over and over again, searching for the elusive sense of perfection.

All the while Tear felt like crying.

What would she do when Zelos graduated from his accelerated business program and flew away to follow the chains of his pre-written destiny? What would she do, left to make music alone? Every chord would fall flat.

She didn't like him, but the thought of music without him rang discordantly hollow.

xxxxx

It is their last performance, she knows.

She can hear the hushed murmurings of the audience beyond the heavy fall of red, can feel the trembling of the floor beneath her feet with the thunder of thousands of feet searching for their seats. The air smells of anticipation.

Zelos, for once, is not smiling. He stands close beside her, his fists clenched at his sides and his lips harshly downturned. She can see the battle in the lines between his eyes.

She doesn't have to ask to know what the problem is. This is the end, the swansong of his adolescent freedom. From this point onwards there are only numbers and charts and politics to deal with. There are some who find such things beautiful, but Zelos is not one of them, and Tear knows it. There will be no joy in such a life for him.

Because it is the last time, it is forgivable-- she reaches out and catches his left hand with her right, winding their fingers together. She does not look at him. It is important to maintain her facade, and her facade involves not liking him. If she lets it slip, she knows she will bleed into him like blue paint into red and there will be no extricating her heart, not ever.  
For once, he is subtle and understanding, crushing her fingers between his but never looking over at her or demanding more than this.

It occurs to her that were she any other girl, he probably would have kissed her right now. The thought makes her sad, though she pretends even to herself that it doesn't in the name of preservation of sanity.

The opening act, all jangling guitars and high, ethereal voices, is finished. They speak, briefly, and the crowd roars.

It is time.

Resolutely hand in hand, they part the red sea of curtains, and walk small and unassuming out into the center of the stage. The noise of the crowd is at such a decibel level that it's almost beyond hearing, an impossibly vast ocean of sound crashing against their ears.

"Yo," Zelos says into his microphone, adjusting his guitar. "What's up with you guys?"

A roared response, thousands strong, utterly incomprehensible.

"Awesome," he says, "glad to hear it. Anyway, you guys want to hear some tunes?"

Tear can't help but smile and feel her eyes sting when the crowd shrieks its desire out towards them. It isn't an egotistical thing. It doesn't make her swell with pride. It makes her happy because this is what she has always wanted her life to be for-- making people smile. She's no saint. She is selfish, so very selfish, and this here is exactly what she wants.

It hits her like lightning with the first chord his fingers draw from his guitar, weeping and jubilant all at once.

Tear can lie to herself all she wants, but it will never change the truth, and the truth is that she is in love with him.

The tears come with the first chord she strikes on her piano's keys, strident and glorious and heartbreaking.

He sings, she sings, they sing together as their fingers accompany them and it's so much more than her dreams had ever reached for as a child, a teenager, an adult. Again and again she wonders how she found herself herself here with all her modest ambitions and humble wishes. The answer, she finds as their last song builds to its climax, is Zelos.

No matter how much she pretends to loathe the way he dances through his life without plan or preparation, he draws out of her the desire to do the same, inspires in her a longing for such freedom from the restrictions she helplessly draws herself into. By seeing beyond the narrow paths of their lives, he forces her to do the same, and she's not sure she'll ever be able to forgive him for that when he leaves.

Their last shivering harmony echoes out into nothing, and the audience volcanically explodes.

Zelos turns to her as if there's no one else in the room but them, with a brash smile just for her.

Her cheeks are soaked, her throat raw, and it seems there is nothing left in her but exhilarated sorrow. Somehow she finds a smile to give him, and stands to take her bow alongside him. His hand finds her before she even properly gets there, dragging her into place against his side. She can feel his breath coming hard, can see the sweat on his brow, and knows he feels much the same as she does.

She doesn't know why they aren't leaving the stage, mission accomplished, but everytime she goes to move away his grip tightens and keeps her still. They bow and bow until the uproar subsides.

Then, seizing the nearest microphone, he turns to her with an expression that even she can't read-- half hope, half terror, half something else infinitely sweet.

"Hey, Tear," he says with a rakish grin.

She has the distinct sense that she's missing something, but the audience is giving her no clues and neither is here. "Yes, Zelos?"

"Marry me."

The audience howls, unable to suppress themselves.

Tear stares at him, searching for signs of the inevitable joke, but there are none. He is smiling but it's real, he's not waiting for a punchline. Just an answer.

Her hand flies to her mouth, and his expression falls, just a little bit. It's enough to shatter what little illusions she has left.

She knows his family will do their best to make them miserable. She is born of soldier stock, not noble blood. She is not especially talented, not especially beautiful, not anything special at all. But for some reason far beyond her, she knows that he means this, more than anything he has ever said to her before.

She looks at him. He winks.

"Well, all right," she answers.

And that's that.

Just as she had worried about her future without him, it seemed he had worried alike, and had found the one possible solution to it. He could not abandon his family-- they were his family, after all, born and raised, and to leave them heirless would have bordered on cruelty just as forcing him to inherit did. Tear respected him for being the greater man in the situation.

Faced with a choice between two things he could not leave behind, he had found a way to lose neither, and left it up to her.

What else is there for her to do but choose?

The storm on his face breaks to sunlight. He gathers her into his arms, fingers spreading on her back, face buried in her neck.  
Tentatively, she hugs him back. It's the first time. She knows that they're doing everything in the wrong order-- usually people find things they have in common, they spend time with each other, date, hug, they kiss, they say their _I love you_'s, _then_ they get married.

Tear and Zelos found things in common, spent time with each other, and now seem to be getting married without any of the things in between.

Still, somehow, it feels right to her. If marriage will give them an excuse to stay together and make music, then everything seems irrelevant.

Taking the initiative to strike one more of the relationship to-do list, Zelos pulls away just far enough to kiss her, in full view of the ten thousand audience members.

She hears nothing but the thunder of her heart.

**XxxxxxX**

**A/N: **WHY SO OTP, GUYS.


	8. VIII: Haven

**A/N: **For Resmiranda, who is Awesome with a capital A.

**Fandoms: **Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Vesperia

**Prompt:** Raven + Guy, "Women are scary!"

**xxxxx**

_**Haven**_

**xxxxx**

Exhausted and sick to his stomach, Guy leans his forehead against the rough bark of the tree and tries to regain control of his breath. His heart, banging wildly against his ribs, will take longer.

"Hey," drawls someone, a man by the voice, from the other side of the wide trunk, "find yer own tree."

xxxxx

In a school of several thousand students, roughly forty-five percent of which are female or at least _pass_ as girls, it's impossible to avoid every one of them. Every class he is in contains at least a handful of them. The hallways are choked with them. Standing in the cafeteria line, walking across campus towards the dormitories, even in his engineering core classes, they are ever-present.

The park is his only sanctuary, being large enough to contain both the women and himself.

Luke's room is usually safe, but not always-- though Tear is gone now, happy with her musician boyfriend whom he hears she'll be marrying soon, women still like Luke and the room is often lit by their laughter and cosmetic glittering. His childish but earnest manner awakens their maternal instinct and they are forever cooing over him and touching his hair.

Guy is happy for him, really, since he seems to enjoy it, but it makes things difficult since he doesn't dare go home to their shared dormitory until after the midnight curfew ensures that the room will be empty but for his roommate.

He is often glad for the temperate climate belt the Academy's island lies in, which saves him from having to find shelter from the cold through the supposed winter months.

It is December now, but the grass is still green, the leaves still firmly attached to their branches, and the gentle wind is barely short of balmy even now, an hour past dusk.

Dimly he recognizes the place he has run to, and opens his mouth to ask--

"Didn't I tell ya to find yer own tree?"

"It's my tree," replies Guy without missing a beat, "_you_ go find your own."

The man laughs, a real one right from his belly. "Siddown, kid. I dunno what yer runnin' from, but this is as good a place ta run ta as any, I s'pose."

Rounding the trunk, Guy finds the speaker sitting cross-legged among the roots, large flask in hand but blue eyes sharp and intelligent. His worn, baggy outfit is composed of blinding shades of purple and yellow, there is stubble all over his chin, and yet there is a strange air of nobility about him. Anyone else might not have recognized it, but Guy knows from a lifetime of living amongst nobility what to look for. Though the stranger is slouching, there is a fine arch to his back that only a spine accustomed to perfect posture can create.

"I'm Guy," he says informally, taking a seat in the moss beside the man.

"I'm... well, I guess ya can call me Raven," says the stranger thoughtfully. "That'll work as well as any."

"Pleased to meet you, Raven."

Raven shrugs. "Right back atcha. Drink? It's good stuff, I don't waste my money on cat piss."

Guy shakes his head, turns his face up to the net of spreading branches and the stars caught in them. "No, thanks, I don't drink."

"Wait'll ya get a woman," Raven says wryly.

There are so many things Guy wants to say to this, but they run into each other in his throat and in the end he doesn't manage to give voice to a single one.

xxxxx

"Take it easy, kid," says Raven as Guy leans over, hands on his knees, and gasps for breath. "Ye'll give yerself a heart attack at that rate."

Guy doesn't answer, only presses his forehead against the tree and tries to deal with the mass of guilt currently trying to swallow him whole.

"So, what's up, then?" Raven asks, offering him the flask again, as he does every time.

This time, after refusing the flask, Guy tells him.

She was a nice girl, really, gentle and harmless and very pretty. Every other single guy in the mess hall had stared in undisguised jealousy when she approached him, confessed her feelings with teary sincerity, and went to throw herself into his arms.

He hadn't seen any of the rest of it through the red haze of terror.

"That's... quite an unpleasant problem ya got yerself there," Raven says sagely. "I can understand."

"You can?" asks Guy weakly, eyeing the flask with deeper consideration than he's ever given it before.

Raven nods and grins. "Kid, women are scary even for people who ain't got some kinda phobia. They'll convince you that giving them yer heart is a good idea, then they'll dissect it for scientific purposes. You got the right idea running from 'em."

"Uh," says Guy, wrinkling his forehead. "I'm pretty sure most girls don't dissect hearts for fun."

"Well, mine does," moans Raven woefully.

"Oh?" says Guy, sensing a story waiting to be told.

He's right, and Raven turns out to be a decent storyteller.

Also, it seems, a cradlerobber, but by the description of his girl-- she's a Mathematics of Magic student of unparalleled brilliance with equally unparalleled violent impulses-- it seems to Guy that Raven needs every one of his years of life experience just to keep up with her.

xxxxx

"Ya know, there are good schools out there just fer boys," Raven tells him.

"Not as good as Apeiron," Guy says truthfully. "Besides, I'm not here just for myself. There's a friend of mine who I've always kind of taken care of, and he asked me to come. It was basically impossible to refuse."

"Got no backbone, that's yer problem."

"I have plenty of backbone!" snaps Guy, indignant. "Just because I have some deep-seated fear of women and am loyal to my friends... it doesn't make me-- I'm not a wimp."

"All right, all right! Relax," says Raven with a laugh, "have a drink."

"Stop trying to make me an alcoholic," Guy says, but finally takes the proffered flask and downs a few mouthfuls of the fiery liquid inside. "Ugh."

"Ya don't hafta be an alcoholic ta enjoy good whiskey," Raven informs him, though this tastes like nothing so much as high quality fermented cat piss.

Guy has never touched alcohol before. His body is unused to it. After a few more swallows, the stars blur into the dark night sky as if they're melting and the branches begin to dance.

xxxxx

"Say it again, and I'll--" Guy begins tiredly.

"Lightweight," obliges Raven with a rakish grin. "Cheap drunk, that's what ya are. Can't hold yer liquor."

Instead of replying, Guy gives up and sighs, leaning his head back against the trunk to stare up at the sky, head inches from Raven's.

"Who are you, anyway," he asks eventually. "They kick non-authorized people off the grounds right away, but you're here every night and I've never seen you do anything remotely productive."

"That's 'cause all my classes are in the mornin'," Raven says sensibly.

"Classes?" Guy says, faintly amazed. "You're a teacher?"

Raven levels a reproachful look at him. "Yes, I'm a teacher. You shouldn't make assumptions. It's dangerous."

The tone and diction of his voice is completely changed from the sentence before-- though he still has a slight drawl, his pronunciation is much clearer, aloof, almost formal. The switch is quite dramatic. Guy is appropriately taken aback.

"Of what?" he can't resist asking.

"History," Raven replies. "Modern war history."

xxxxx

Next semester, Guy signs up for Raven's class.

He tells himself it's because he needs the balance credits, but really it's because he's curious what his friend and human sanctuary is like on duty, obliged to professionalism.

He can't wait to see the old man's face.

**XxxxxxX**

**A/N:** Yes, I know Raven doesn't drink much in the game. That part's mostly based on a fanart I have of him pouring sake over Casey's grave. I CLAIM POETIC LICENSE


	9. IX: Intrigue

**A/N: **Written for **Suriyel** again, the original benefactor of this bizarre little universe. Much love to her.

This section:

**Fandoms: **Tales of the Abyss, Blood+

**Characters:** Jade x Saya, Peony, Kai

**xxxxx**

_**IX: Intrigue**_

**xxxxx**

Jade's trademark is a straight face. It isn't always easy.

xxxxx

Peony catches him on the way to the Kurotsuchi Science Hall, guiding him into the shadow of the trees with a firm hand on his elbow. His eyes catch Jade's earnestly, blue as ever even in the dim light. "There are a couple of new students in your class. The boy you don't have to worry about, he'll drop out soon enough when he realizes how out of his depth he is, but the girl... watch out for the girl, old friend."

Jade nods and adjusts his glasses calmly. However, his mind is racing. Peony appears to be merely a janitor on the Apeiron grounds... but he knows things, things he shouldn't know. Jade has his suspicions, knowing Peony's past, but never voices them. There must be a reason he wishes to hide his true position from his best friend. Jade is not averse to letting him have his secret. For him to issue so direct a warning, without even a pretense at his usual ambling facade, means something has gone wrong. Somewhere, somehow, something slipped through Peony's fingers, some key piece of information.

Ah, and here it is, Jade realizes: Peony doesn't know _why_ he needs to be careful. He knows she is dangerous, but not what she is, or what she can do.

Walking back into the sunlight, Jade allows himself a small smile. Today will be interesting.

xxxxx

She's a pretty thing, Jade thinks, and so small.

That hardly lessens his wariness. Anise taught him well enough not to underestimate small pretty girls, and this Saya is taller and stronger than Anise ever looked.

And _smart_. So very, very clever, this girl. Though she always gives the impression of being distracted by something far away, she seems to be having little difficulty with the finer points of genetic engineering, and none at all with the basic concepts. What the other students are struggling to learn she is absorbing as easily as breath, though she does not seem to realize it, scrutinizing her textbook with furrowed brow as though it were hard to understand.

Jade is not fooled. He has been a professor for many years and knows a good student when he sees one.

Her brother, on the other hand...

Kai, his name was, Jade remember. He is sitting in the back left corner glowering at his textbook, knuckles white around the edges of its covers. It isn't that he's a stupid boy. That much is obvious. He has a fine mind, well suited to such studies as this. The problem lies in his attitude-- Jade knows nothing about him, but he can tell without a shadow of a doubt that this is not the first Kai has heard of genetic engineering, and what is more, he has no love for it. What exactly lies in his past that gives him this angry expression is a mystery, but Jade is certain that he will not last the week, as Peony said.

It will be a loss, but not a great one. Jade is content to concentrate on Saya.

xxxxx

This is highly inappropriate. Jade knows it, and he knows that there are dozens of professors on campus who would have his head if they knew. It isn't as if Jade is doing anything wrong, exactly, but they would not stop to hear it before eliminating the threat to the Academy's reputation.

"Professor Curtiss," she says, tapping the textbook rhythmically with the eraser end of her mechanical pencil and offering him a rueful smile, "I think I'm done for the day. I can't see straight."

"Day?" he says with a lightly mocking smile of his own. "Miss Otonashi, it's past midnight."

She gasps and spins in her chair to search out the glowing microwave clock, then cringes when it corroborates his words. "I'm so sorry," she says, horrorstruck. "I've kept you up so late. I should go."

Jade smiles placidly. "There's no rush, Saya. I am accustomed to sleeping approximately four hours per night. It's not quite my bedtime yet."

She slows slightly in her frantic rush to shovel her books and supplies into her bag, making a rueful face. "Still. It's very rude of me. And Kai will be wondering where I am."

Ah yes, the protective older brother. He played the part so well. If not for the experiment on the very first week of classes, some three weeks ago, wherein each class member sampled their own DNA to compare it to others in the class and identify its components, Jade would never have known for sure that he wasn't her blood sibling. He had suspected-- they had nothing of familial resemblance between them-- but suspicions are not proof. The experiment provided proof, and as a scientist, he took pleasure in that in one way.

Another way had him frowning at her back when she wasn't looking, wondering if she was aware of the way Kai looked at her. Judging by the way she could become oblivious to everything else while focused on something which interested her, he rather doubted it.

"Good night, Professor, and thank you for all your help. I really feel like I'm beginning to understand."

That was an understatement, he thought ruefully, though he knew he'd never convince her otherwise. She was not his equal, and likely would never be, but while this was his only talent, it was only one of her multitude. She was good at everything.

What's more, he knew now at long last _why_ she was good at everything, or at least part of it.

Her blood sample was at this moment safely hidden in his personal laboratory, beneath his cabin, preserved for future scrutiny. The students, frivolous and uninformed, had not known what it was that they were looking at. To tell the truth, Jade hadn't know either. He still didn't know.

All he had were hypotheses upon hypotheses, and each of them crazier than the last.

xxxxx

"You are being amazingly stupid," Peony informs him, leaning against the opposite side of the trunk.

Jade sighs. "I'm not doing anything."

"Try explaining that to the board when somebody finds out. Yes, when. Not if."

It is rare to hear Peony angry-- he is a genial man, very nearly defines 'laid-back,' but he can afford to be like this because he has real power behind him which allows him to speak up in situations such as this. Very few people have ever been on the wrong end of his cold fury, and even fewer ever dare incur it again. Jade, however, has seen it many times over their years together and is not as fazed as perhaps he should be.

"I will, _if_ it happens. There's no point worrying about it. I'm personally tutoring a gifted student. That's all there is to it."

Peony heaves a frustrated sigh. "I warned you to be careful, Jade. Is that what you call this?"

Jade holds his breath for a moment before replying so that he won't say 'yes' and betray himself. Him being truly careless would be much more disastrous than this inconsequential risk. "I'll watch my back," he promises quietly. "You know me. I have to know. Even if it gets me in trouble."

"Trouble, huh," echoes Peony softly. "That's one word for it."

And he is gone, leaving Jade to wonder what he meant by that as the endless stream of students pours past him on the western avenue.

It occurs to him that Peony is right: he should be worried. How curious that he isn't.

xxxxx

He contemplates the short dark spill of her hair against his spotless white table for half an hour, but no viable solutions present themselves to him.

Waking her and letting her sleep both carry their own risks-- who is to say what a superbeing with unknown capacities for violence would instinctually do if roused unexpectedly from a deep sleep? what would people say if they saw her leaving in the morning in her rumpled clothing from the day before?-- and alternate options are frustratingly scarce. He has no way to move her without endangering himself, if she is indeed a danger, which is not yet established beyond doubt but is also not disproved beyond doubt and is thus not worth risking. He also has no way of sneaking her out of his home once she wakes naturally without arousing suspicion.

"Ahem," he says experimentally.

Unsurprisingly, she does not stir. It is after three in the morning. She is exhausted from her overambitious courseload and its corresponding out-of-class mountains of homework. She has pushed herself too far even for her superior capacities, much farther than any regular person would have been physically able to handle.

She is a wonder of nature, endlessly fascinating, perpetually forbidden.

He wonders just how old she really is. From what he has been able to discern from his limited samples and observations of her, it is entirely possible that she is older than him, possibly by quite a lot. Her cells do not seem vulnerable to the decay of age inevitable to ordinary humans such as himself. They renew themselves instantly after damage, as evidenced by an event last week in which she accidentally injured herself drawing herself a drink in his kitchen and healed nearly before the minor blood splatter reached the floor. Though she appears hardly older than twenty-one, her true age could be many multiples of that. He has no way of knowing without examining her brain more directly, which would be crossing one of the very few lines he considers actually forbidding.

The temptation of knowledge is very difficult to resist, however, and made all the more difficult to resist by the fact that she is sleeping, perfectly vulnerable, inside his unsurveilled cabin in the middle of the night when security is focused on the perimeters rather than the heart of the campus.

He could do anything he wanted for hours, perhaps days if he attended and taught his classes as if nothing were amiss, before questions started being asked.

It is not that he is an evil person. He is merely a scientist, perhaps too scientific to leave room for compassion to develop, valuing information over the prevention of temporary suffering. It is not a trait many love in him but being a person who cares little for the regard of others, commanding respect by this very unconcern, it does not bother him.

What bothers him is knowing that his power over her would be temporary at best, and very likely met with bloody retribution when she escaped it-- and she would. He cannot learn if he is dead.

"Ahem," he says again, knowing from experience the statistically probable outcome of this train of thought and not wishing to venture that way at this time. "_Ahem._"

Mercifully, she stirs, dissipating the last shreds of temptation.

She rubs her dark eyes and peers over at him through the dim, surreal light. "Did I fall asleep? I'm so sorry, Professor. Where's my stuff... I'll get going."

Without at trace of his internal debate present on his face, Jade helps her gather her belongings and points her in the general direction of her dormitory with a benevolent smile. It's strange, he thinks-- she trusts him, but he is not precisely in a position of power, since she could likely kill him without any significant effort at all. The dynamics of it are quite unusual. If she were the male and he the female it would be more easily understandable and volumously backed up by historical evidence, but this configuration and her particular flavour of power are entirely new as far as he knows.

The prospect of knowing something no one else knows nearly makes him slaver with anticipation and asexual desire. It is the holy grail of his life's effort, the elusive ace in the hole which would guarantee superiority and a sort of victory over his rivals.

He wonders how long he will be able to resist this hypnotizing siren call.

xxxxx

As it turns out, he does not have to.

"I want to know," she says, standing in his entryway with her fists clenched white and her face pale. "What am I? How am I different? I need to understand before I can move forward. I need to understand what I am capable of. Will you help me?"

He stares, and takes a moment to breathe deeply and try and ascertain if he is dreaming. The fact that he is actively concerned about the possibility of dreaming, however, essentially rules it out by its very existence. Dreamers do not wonder if they dream, unless they have trained themselves to dream lucidly, which is a discipline he has not paid enough attention to master.

He is awake, and she is offering to fulfill his dearest fantasies.

"Of course," he says calmly, no hint of his inner storm surfacing for even a moment.

There are tears standing in her eyes, whether tears of fear or relief he cannot tell.

"Thank you," she whispers. Her nails are digging harsh circles into her palms. She does not appear to notice, and they will heal soon in any case.

His elation is so great that he cannot actually comprehend it at this time, like a vast balloon encompassing him which is blotting out the sky and ground and all between them. It is all he can see and so he can see essentially nothing at all, not even her relieved and terrified face, not the stairs in front of him though his feet navigate them with the unerring ease of habit.

There are mysteries to unravel and opportunities to unravel them. Jade has never been happier.

xxxxx

"Old friend, you are in a world of trouble now," Peony says with sad resignation.

Jade hardly notices. "Do you realize the magnitude of this," he says, punctuating his words with short, sharp gestures with his hands. "She is essentially the living varient of the ancient vampire legends. A myth made flesh."

Peony looks at him sharply. "She's also a girl," he reminds Jade, not ungently, "just an ordinary human girl. Try not to forget that."

"She is so much more than ordinary, even as a girl," Jade says, hardly hearing the tone of reverence in his own voice. "She is a goddess among mortals."

"You aren't a religious man."

"Religion implies worship. I don't worship her for her existence. I am fascinated by it."

His oldest friend, and now only friend since the passing of Nebilim and the betrayal of Dist, looks at him with plain, undisguised concern written wide and simple across his face. "I've already told you to be careful, but really, please, be careful. You don't know what you're dealing with."

Jade seizes the opportunity without a moment's hesitation. "Why don't you tell me what I'm dealing with, then? If you're so concerned."

Peony glares at him. "I can't. You know I can't."

"It was worth a try," Jade replies with a shrug. "Any scientist worth his salt knows that trying things only when they are likely to succeed leads only to predictable outcomes, not real discovery."

"Nothing can be accomplished without first an attempt, right?" Peony fills in, resigned. "Well, all right. Just don't say I didn't warn you."

"Nobody could ever say that," Jade says, teasing. "You've warned me enough for three catastrophes."

Peony smiles, neither relieved nor sad but something in between. "Only because I care."

"Thank you," says Jade. He honestly means it.

xxxxx

Kai comes to class the next day and glares all the way through it, clearly not hearing a word of the lecture. A quick glance at the class roster confirms that he is no longer actually a student of this class, even informally. This gives Jade the right to have him forcibly evicted if he so chose, but instead he chooses not to, to let him stay and watch and hopefully learn where the borders of his influence lie.

After class he lingers, waiting for the chance to come up to the lectern and growl angry words under his breath about leaving his sister alone and suffering consequences.

Jade smiles placatingly through the short tirade, then ushers the boy out without a word of argument.

He is of no consequence.

xxxxx

What matters is Saya. She is artificially still under his dispassionate gloved hands and instruments, heartbeat elevated but not to dangerous levels, her face displaying no sign of discomfort, only a chill resignation.

When a test is finished, they pore over it together, her mind adapting to the new concepts he introduced with greater and greater ease. He suspects-- and later confirms the suspicion-- that earlier in this portion of her life she had been unremarkable as a student, dull-minded with lack of practice in this area. She hardly remembers the previous eras but they seem similarly unawakened, left dormant by the lack of present and intriguing challenges to her mind.

They are present now, and testing the limits of her abilities without any luck at finding borders so far.

She is already at the point of suggesting things he would not have thought of himself, capitalizing on her lack of experience in the field to prevent her ruling out things which his mind did not even bring to his conscious attention before striking down as impossible. He still has the benefit of long years of experience and still believes his capacity in this sole area to exceed hers by a small margin, but she is by no means lacking as a discussion partner on the topic.

Slowly, bit by bit, they piece together the alien story her body tells them, until they are too engrossed, too close to what they are viewing to understand how terrified they ought to be.

"I am a monster," she says at one point, but she says it as a joke.

xxxxx

Then comes the day her chevalier comes for her.

He is the first person since Peony-- since _Saya_-- to meet Jade's eyes directly. There is no fear in them, no anxiety, nothing but silent, placid, calm assurance that all will happen as it should. It can't be the truth-- no one is that confident, it's always an act, always-- but even Jade cannot see through it despite all his years of practice.

This inspires a reluctant respect, mingled equally with frustrated resentment that Saya appears to intend to leave with this strange, flat-eyed man, abandoning her explorations with him as though they were only a whim to pass the time.

Perhaps they were. Jade forces himself to face the possibility that she really was only there out of idle curiosity while waiting for this man's return. It is a sour prospect.

"Are you going, then?" he asks, smiling inside at how smooth his voice is despite his turmoil.

She frowns faintly, turning to meet her chevalier's eyes-- he makes a note to look up the term, he knows what it means but it clearly has deeper meaning between them specifically which perhaps history can help him piece together-- and having what appears to be a silent conversation with him while Jade waits anxiously.

Kai lurks just out of earshot across the avenue, hands in his pockets and corners of his mouth deeply downturned. It is not clear what he wishes, other than for Saya to be as far from Jade as possible.

At last she turns back to him with a small, rueful smile. "I'll stay," she says, "as long as I can. There's more I want to know."

The flood of relief and triumph is almost too large to contain, but he manages somehow by freezing his expression into an ingratiating smile and staying still until it mostly passes. "I am glad to hear that," he says honestly, if understating the truth rather spectacularly.

Saya smiles, girlish and almost innocent..

For the first time Jade sees the humanity in her and is staggered by the scope of his oversight.

xxxxx

It is from Hagi that he first hears the word _chiropteran_.

It is from Saya that he learns respect for it.

xxxxx

In the end, all of Peony's distraught hand-wringing proves itself farseeing.

"This is a matter of grave import for the reputation of this school," says a grizzled veteran of the overarching counsel with a beard bound in ribbons trailing to his midriff. "You have violated the sacrosanct rules of teacher-student interaction. Such actions merit consequences of equal severity, as I am sure you are aware."

"What consequences? Will you suspend me from teaching? Where would you get another teacher of my caliber? Or perhaps banish me from the island entirely, to do my research for others who would perhaps also find uses for it as you have?"

"Do not provoke us!" the council thunder as one. "Know your place!"

Adjusting his glasses, Jade makes a flippant gesture with his right hand, as if encouraging the council to do its worst. "I do know my place. I was hired by someone who outranks you, and as far as I know he still deems me necessary to the school's goals. I will not be concerned until I hear from him."

"Vice Principal Peony has left the decision to us."

For the first time Jade feels a stir of unease. Why is Peony silent? Is he afraid to upset the delicate balance of power in the upper echelons of the Academy's country-sized ruling structure? Are there rules which prevent him from exercising his influence for personal reasons beyond certain limits? Whatever the reason is, Jade realizes that he is much more alone in this than he had previously thought. It is a cause for concern.

None of it, of course, shows in his face. His poker face is legendary.

"Then what is your decision?" he asks, somewhat more respectfully.

"We have not come to one as of yet," they reply. "We desire to know exactly what happened between this girl and yourself before we decide your fate. We are not so cruel as to inflict a punishment disproportionate to the crime."

Jade resists the urge to roll his eyes like a recalcitrant teenaged boy. "I have done nothing, as I said. I tutored a willing student after hours at her own request. Nothing untoward took place. Ask the girl herself."

"Perhaps we shall," says another member of the council coldly, one who rarely speaks and defers unfailingly to the first speaker in Jade's experience. "What would we find, I wonder?"

"Nothing," says a familiar voice from the entrance of the hall at Jade's back.

He almost whirls to stare in astonishment, but elects instead to stay as he is and smile sardonically. "Ah, speak of the devil and she shall come." The less-than-metaphorical accuracy of the phrase does not escape him, and his adjusts his glasses with an amused snort.

"You were not summoned," Yamamoto, the first speaker, says disapprovingly.

"Whatever," Saya replies with a shrug. "Here I am. Nothing happened. I'm leaving today in any case, so the threat to your academy is removing itself without any action on your part."

Jade feels a pang in his chest but says nothing. He has been granted time and cooperation beyond his wildest dreams. To demand more would be unspeakably greedy. He has material enough to pore over for years to come anyway. Still, the thought that he might not have had enough time to discover _everything_ gnaws at him like an ulcer. What if he has missed something crucial? He will never have another chance.

The council mutter amongst themselves, ancient and decrepit but still infused with the ancient and unquestioned power of their positions. At last they straighten and rearrange themselves into a picture of stony dignity, sitting in a half-moon of white robes behind an ancient curving mahogany table. "This solution is satisfactory."

"I should hope so," murmurs Jade under his breath.

"Well, good," echoes Saya unknowingly, "since that's all I planned to offer. Thank you for the opportunity to study here, it was most informative--" and with this she flicks a glance over at Jade for the first time, and he is surprised to see regret there, "--and I may return at some time in the future if possible."

At this his heart leaps in renewed hope. He had not considered the possibility of her returning to the Academy, to _him_, even in his flightiest fantasies.

With that and a respectful though somewhat shallow bow, she turns and sweeps out of the hall with grace disproportionate to her schoolgirl stature and appearance.

After a few more moments of formal closing exchanges, Jade follows her nearly at a run, catching her just as she makes the right turn down the colonnade towards the docks on the western shore. The sun is setting behind her, setting her dark hair alight with unholy crimson flames.

"Will you really come back?" he asks, boring into her skull with unblinking eyes.

She meets him, unfazed, her eyes deep in the evening shadow. "Maybe," she answers with a noncommital shrug. "I'm not sure yet. Things are pretty unstable on the mainland and I have no way of knowing how long it will take to straighten things out. But," she says with a rogueish smile, "if I get the chance, rest assured that I'll come here first. There are still lots of things I want your help in figuring out."

It takes Jade a long moment to identify the strange swelling feeling in his chest: pride. He is _honoured_ by her reassurance, like a wide-eyed subject at a queen's smiling platitude.

He files the sensation away for later examination and reaches out to shake her hand formally, holding her eyes as long as he can until she turns away and strides off into the sparse crowd, vanishing in seconds.

Someday, he knows with the unfamiliar vague press of intuition, she will be back. She is like him in her insatiable need to know the truth.

Until she does, there is much to do.

Jade turns and walks in the opposite direction with purpose and a quiet smile.

**XxxxxxX**

**A/N: **Yes? No? I don't know.


End file.
